The Storm worm: the botnet that started with a weather headline
In January 2007 an email about deadly storms in Europe spread a Trojan that built one of the largest peer-to-peer botnets of its time.
THE 2007 STORY
Topic
Security
Security stories rarely end when the headline fades. A worm that spread in an afternoon can shape email filtering for a decade, and a court case about copy protection can still decide what you are allowed to do with a file you bought.
These explainers follow the incidents and arguments that defined internet security from the mass-mailing worms of the early 2000s to the profit-driven botnets that replaced them.
Timeline
- 2001The Anna Kournikova worm shows that a toolkit and a celebrity name are enough to cause a global outbreak.
- 2004Mass-mailing worms such as MyDoom and Netsky dominate mail traffic.
- 2007The Storm worm builds one of the largest peer-to-peer botnets seen to date.
- 2008Conficker begins spreading through an unpatched Windows service.
Explainers
The Anna Kournikova worm: a toolkit, a tennis star and a global outbreak
In February 2001 an email promising a photo of the tennis player spread worldwide. It was built with a point-and-click virus generator.
THE 2001 STORY
When Bill Gates told people to buy CDs: Microsoft and the DRM debate
In December 2006 Bill Gates said digital rights management caused too much pain for honest buyers, at a time when Microsoft was selling DRM technology.
THE 2006 STORY
The 2005 Sidekick hack: a celebrity phone breach and online account security
In February 2005 the address book and notes from Paris Hilton’s T-Mobile Sidekick appeared online. The breach showed how weak account recovery could expose data synced to the cloud.
THE 2005 STORY
Tools
Password strength checker
Estimate how hard a password is to guess. Everything runs locally; nothing is sent anywhere.
File hash checker
Calculate SHA-256, SHA-1 or SHA-512 checksums for a file and compare them with a published value.